One of the most depressing aspects of this all-out attack on freedom of speech and political expression is that a former far-right councillor has now been granted access to the moral high ground.

The censured Coleman is posing as the defender of democratic values, pointing out that:

‘Posting an article on a personal blog could never be construed as harassment, not in a free country. This is political correctness in law form… My forefathers fought in two world wars to protect the freedom we have today. I will be damned if these hard-won freedoms will be taken away in the twenty-first century.’

He has a point. It’s just worrying that it has been left to him – a far-right activist not very interested in liberty – to make it.

Such has been the left’s abandonment of the ideal of freedom of speech that it can now be co-opted by elements on the hard right.

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“Ironic,” yes, but “worrying”? “Depressing”?

Surely not, it you really believe, as you claim to that freedom of speech is a universal right.

One cannot “co-opt” something that was always yours to begin with.

And how is it that the “far-right activist” is the one “not very interested in liberty” when it sounds like he is far more “interested” in it than his smug, petulant prosecutors on the Left.

I DO wish folks could defend freedom of speech without butt-covering, partisan moral preening.